5/7 PTA Newsletter

Teacher Appreciation Week: May 7-11

Teacher and staff appreciation week begins Monday May 7. We will honor our educators a little differently each day of the week.

Monday:Potluck Lunch! (Mexican theme)Tuesday:Flowers! Bring Flowers from home or store. We’ll arrange them into bouquetsWednesday:Gift Cards! Please consider bringing in a $5-10 gift card for a store or business of your choice, and leave it in the labeled envelope in the school office by Monday, May 7. Be creative! Last year we had gift cards for fun items like bagels, donuts, Jamba Juice, Subway, etc., and even a gas card (!), in addition to plenty of Starbucks and Fuel cards.Thursday:Thank-You Cards! Bring accolades for our educators. We will assign staff by last name and ask you and your kid(s) to write a note of thanks and celebration for their efforts.Friday:New Microwave and Coffeemaker for Teachers! The PTSA bought new appliances for the teachers’ lounge to replace some old (well used!) appliances.

We’ll send more details for each day via your room representative. Thank you for everything you do for your kids and our school! For more information, please contact Alicia Goodwin & Bridget Backshies at outreach@montlakepta.org

2018-19 PTA Board: Recruiting!

The PTA Board is recruiting for the 2018-2019 school year, and we would love to have you on board! Being a part of the PTA Board is an amazing way to get involved with the school, to learn, and to make a difference in our great community. All board positions are asked to attend monthly PTA board meetings and to vote on all PTA matters.. Volunteer positions are not required to attend PTA meetings.

Each PTA board position must be elected annually, and the elections will take place on May 3rd. Click here for a list of all available positions. If there is already a candidate for the position, I have noted so in parenthesis.

If you see yourself in one of these positions or are simply curious, please don’t hesitate to contact Kate Levin at kate.d.levin@gmail.com.

Tour de Montlake: May 26

Save the Date: Saturday May 26, 2018. 10am-noon.

A popular Montlake tradition continues! Montlake Elementary School to host our 6th annual kids bicycle race! Kids practice some laps around the track, then start with a time trial lap around the track to determine their start order for the Grand Tour de Montlake. The Tour consists of a partial lap around the track, then (upper grade levels only) some turns through the north Montlake field, and back onto the track for the grand finish. Elevation gain is minimal, reaching the Col de Montlake at about 1m above sea level. Prizes are awarded by grade level (plus a separate push-bike division). No minimum age. Siblings & friends are welcome. There will be trophies, snacks, & fun for all. The event will take place on the track and in the field at Montlake Community Center.

Technology Vision Working Group

Are you interested in helping to keep our PTA running smoothly and efficiently? Do you have a technical background? Do you have an interest in learning more about cloud services such as Office 365, Microsoft Azure, and Salesforce, or working with open source software such as WordPress and OpenCart, on a platform of Linux, MySQL, and PHP?

Hi, my name is Greg Lindhorst. I have been driving the PTA’s technology efforts for many years now. In that time, we’ve moved to an electronic BuzzBook, classroom email distribution lists, online payments for most everything, and an online document repository for the PTA’s business. It is all built on free services and open source software – we don’t pay a dime. But alas, this is my family’s last year at Montlake.

The free software and services will continue without me. But we have benefited from my ability to create custom solutions and manage a Linux VM. We need to decide if this model is sustainable long term, if there is enough willing technical talent in our parent population to carry this forward. Given our employers include Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and so many others, I have to believe there is a lot of talent out there.

I’m starting a working group to consider these and any other options. I’m only asking for you to attend a meeting and engage on a few email threads just to discuss how we should move forward.

Please join us! Please send an email to gregli@hotmail.com and I will loop you in.

Events

You can always find out about upcoming events by clicking on the Calendar tab, above!

Volunteering

If you’d like to find out about volunteer opportunities, click on the Volunteering tab, above!

Special Education Liaison

The Montlake PTA has our very own Special Education Liaison: Laura Porto Stockwell. Do you have questions about the special education program at Montlake? Please feel free to contact Laura Porto Stockwell at lauraporto@gmail.com.